For U.S. Ambassadors, It Takes a Villa

The State Department’s portfolio of residences includes valuable properties like Rome’s Villa Taverna and London’s Winfield House

Built in the 15th century for a cardinal, Villa Taverna sits on 7 acres in one of Rome’s most central and exclusive neighborhoods. The property includes a Roman sarcophagus dating to the 3rd century, ancient Egyptian granite columns, a swimming pool and a tennis court.

Who owns this spread? U.S. taxpayers, as Villa Taverna is the U.S. ambassador’s residence. What is it worth? Hard to say: a 2010 Office of the Inspector General’s report estimated the combined value of the residence and the embassy compound in Rome at anywhere from “$500 million to $1 billion.”

The State Department has a portfolio of 174 residences to provide U.S. ambassadors with accommodations around the world, some of which are extremely valuable.

One of the most valuable properties in the portfolio was a gift. In London, a redbrick neo-Georgian mansion named Winfield House was offered to the U.S. government by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton for just $1 as a gesture of gratitude following the effort in World War II, according to State Department records.

The plot is adjacent to Regent’s Park in central London: 12-acres of highly valuable land held on a 99-year lease from the Crown Estate (the British Sovereign public estate).

In Havana, a stately neoclassical residence of Cuban limestone in the upscale Miramar neighborhood was built in the 1940s for $5.1 million in today’s dollars. For the 16 years in which diplomatic relations were interrupted between the two countries, the property was cared for primarily by Swiss diplomats; it was returned in 1977.

Measuring 31,750 square feet, the home, with seven bedrooms each with a private loggia, was fit to accommodate President Barack Obama and his security detail during an official visit in March.

Located adjacent to London’s Regent’s Park, Winfield House was offered to the U.S. government by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton for just $1.

Many residences are historically significant in large part because of the role the buildings have played in diplomacy. In Casablanca, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill plotted the end of World War II in the U.S.-owned Villa Mirador. The Marshall Plan was largely devised in Paris’s Hôtel Rothschild. In the residence in Tokyo, the meeting between Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito resulted in the emperor’s admission that he wasn’t a divine being in 1946. Today, it is the residence of Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, Jr. and current U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Ambassadors find ways to leave their mark on their residences. In Hanoi, the ambassador’s residence is a beaux-arts villa in the city’s historic French quarter. In its second-floor representational space, the current ambassador, Ted Osius, and his husband recently renewed their wedding vows in a ceremony presided over by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during an official visit. “We thought it might be meaningful not only to us, but it was also important to the LGBT community in Vietnam,” Mr. Osius said.

In 2005, when Ronald Spogli first arrived as ambassador at Villa Taverna, he was dismayed to find it lacked a wine cellar. Mr. Spogli made an appeal for donations to Italian and American winemakers vetted by the State Department. He also personally contributed to the total $1.1 million raised for the project. Centuries-old catacombs protected by Italian heritage laws were directly beneath the house, making any excavation work complicated. An architect designed a three-level 5,000-bottle wine storage and tasting area underground, next door to the tombs.

The wine cellar wasn’t completed until 2009, after Mr. Spogli’s tenure had already ended. Since leaving Rome, Mr. Spogli, 68, has returned to Los Angeles to work at the private-equity firm he co-founded, Freeman Spogli & Co.

The value of all these properties isn’t easily determined. Christy Foushee, spokesperson for the Overseas Buildings Operations bureau (OBO), which functions as the State Department’s property manager, said there is no program to track the current property values, and residences are rarely sold.

“The task of performing regular appraisals for such a diverse mix of historic properties in capital cities across the globe, many in opaque markets, would be an expensive and time consuming effort that hasn’t been considered a good use of taxpayer dollars without a compelling reason such as an imminent sale,” Ms. Foushee said.